is my drive partitioned and i dont know it?

[JacobM5727]

i have an 8.4gb drive, when i select it, it says the capacity os only 7.85

also windows is always installing things from the "win98 cd" does that mean that a windows 98 cd is copied onto my harddrive some where?


if so, is there anyway to see it?

[smokin1]

The partitioned size is alway smaller than the rated size on a HD. I suspect that you have a folder on your hard drive called win98..it would contain all the cab files. The OS was probably installed from the HD at setup, so you would not require the CD for program installations that need it.
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[JacobM5727]

thanks, ive been wondering about it since i got my computer 3 years ago

[RandomGoon]

Your disk is being reported as smaller than you expected due to how it's formatted. You will always see a "loss" due to space needed for FAT, MBR, and partition table. This is completely normal for your drive. I had the same question some years ago, did some research, got my answer, and was happy. I've since forgotten all the details but I know it's normal http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif As for the "Win 98 CD" thing it's prolly as smokin1 says, you've got the Win98 folder on your HDD somewhere so you don't need to insert the CD everytime you make a change.

'Goon

[wyvrn]

I also heard of manufacturers considering 1000K a Megabyte instead of 1064K. This could be some of the difference.

[This message has been edited by wyvrn (edited 05-25-2001).]

[JacobM5727]

hmmm, sounds good thanks everyone.. another thing, if my drive was fat32 when i got it, why did it come with drive converter?

[wyvrn]

Win98 also recognizes Fat 16, and if you had run the Win98 upgrade from Win95 (with a Fat 16 partition), then the driver converter came in handy for upgrading to Fat32 without formatting from DOS and losing all of your data.

[JacobM5727]

ok gotcha ^_^ thanks

[jeffpapier]

It could also be that your computer counts MBs as 1,024 K. and the hard drive manufacturer counts MBs as 1,000 K. and GBs as 1,000,000 K. instead of 1,048,576 K.
(Corporate accounting)

And I have some IBM 3.5 floppies that are marked 2.0 MB before formating.

[Warthog]

Yeah, the total space on any hd is NEVER on target, always off several hundred mebabytes to a gig or so.

Warthog

[JacobM5727]

i need a bigger drive, or more drives..

[falcompsx]

between all my hard drives in various computers...i'm missing what...maybe 10 gig's? that's an entire hd!

[JacobM5727]

thats alot of missing space lol

[falcompsx]

"buy ten 10gb hd's lose one 10gb hd to marketing absolutely free! that's right, your heard me correctly, due to the way we scam you when you buy them, you are actually buing less then you pay for!!!"

(c)all HD manufacturers(c)

[JacobM5727]

seeing how many people take deals like that already, that one would get draw alot more business

[n715dp]

This IS because of the 1024kb vs. 1000kb making up a MB... for example... my 10GB drive shows up as 9.34 and my 20GB shows up as 18.9... nothing to worry about with your computer.

[JacobM5727]

when you think of it, isnt it sad, my life only fills up about half an 8 gig drive?

[jray]

Yeah, on a Maxtor 20g drive, the fine print says "1 g = 1,000,000,000 bytes." or sumthin like that, even though we all know the 1024 thing.....seems like they (drive manufactureres) should have to do mark by that standard....